86
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
VISIT TO INGATESTONE AND FRYERNING (872nd Meeting)
SATURDAY, APRIL 19TH, 1947
At 11.45 a.m. on a grey, but not unpleasant day, twenty members
assembled at Ingatestone Station for a walk through the fields and woods
of this pleasant district.
Ingatestone Parish Church was reached by a path across the greensward,
and here Miss Hilbert gave an account of some of the most interesting
features of the church. The nave and chancel date from the late eleventh
century and the walls are of pudding stone with courses of Roman bricks.
The original building was later enlarged by the addition of a south aisle
with fifteenth-century arcading. In the late fifteenth century the great tower
of red brick was added, and in the sixteenth century the south chapel was
built by Lord Petre, of Ingatestone Hall. In 1660 his son added the north
chapel and in it erected a striking monument to his father whereon appear
the kneeling figures of the Baron, his wife, and their many children. There
is a large iron hour-glass bracket near the pulpit.
Passing through the churchyard and across the main Colchester road,
where two sarsen stones were noticed and commented upon, the way then
led across meadowland and by the parklands of The Hyde to Fryerning
Mill. By kind permission of Mrs. Armitage this old mill was opened for
the inspection of the party. It is a post mill of the kind usual in these parts,
about 200 years old and now derelict though still in a fairly sound state.
Members having climbed to the upper chambers and thoroughly examined
the machinery—always so interesting in these old mills—then settled
down on the grass at the foot of the mill to enjoy an alfresco lunch.
There were many birds in the surrounding garden-land, and the songs
of blackbird, mistle-thrush, greenfinch, chaffinch, willow warbler and white-
throat were distinguished.
After lunch the walk was continued across open land covered with
bracken, sallow and birch scrub, to the curiously named Viper Inn ; thence,
partly by a pleasant road and partly by woodland footpath, a short circuit
of the High Woods was made. The road having been regained, our guide
then led the party back to Fryerning where, at the Woolpack Inn, an adequate
and appetising tea was ready. After tea a short formal meeting of the Club
was held, with Mr. Howard in the chair.
Mr. Roy Hopkins, of 203, Beckton Road, Canning Town, E.16, was
elected a junior member, and the Chairman expressed the thanks of those
present to Miss Hilbert for her careful planning of the day's outing.
It was then disclosed that another pleasure lay ahead, the Rector of
Fryerning, Rev. C. S. Trimble, having undertaken to conduct the members
over his parish church.
To the party assembled in the church the Rector explained that the nave
was built in the eleventh century of a somewhat unusual mixture of Roman
tiles, flints and pudding stone; he then pointed out the well-preserved
rood stair, the oaken rood beam (a memorial of the first world war)
and the font of Caen stone. This fine and unusual font has carvings on its
four sides depicting the vine, the tree of Jesse, the sun, moon and stars and
the cross and crown. It was rescued in recent years from a nearby farmyard
where it was serving as a drinking trough. After examining, in the vestry,
a brass which shows on one side a fifteenth-century figure and on the other a
figure engraved over a hundred years later, the visitors were shown some of
the church plate, including a silver-gilt flagon of date 1700.
Guided by the Rector, the ascent of the seventy-five steps to the roof of
the tower was then made, some delay being occasioned on the way by the
necessity of removing a quantity of nesting material recently brought into